Former IAC PR Director Justine Sacco Speaks Out About The Tweet That Got Her Fired

It probably wasn't the weekend Justine Sacco thought she was
heading into when she clicked send on the tweet below and then
shut off her phone for a 12-hour international flight.

Twitter

By that afternoon, the tweet had been posted to
Valleywag and the internet was abuzz. Sacco was still in the
air, and the tweet was still on her feed. Would there be an
apology when she landed? Would the PR boss of IAC (parent company
of Tinder, Vimeo and OkCupid) lose her job? One hashtag made its
way to the top of the trending list on Twitter:
#HasJustineLandedYet.

Now,
Sacco has spoken out herself with an apology, ABC reports,
which she first sent to a South African newspaper The
Star:

Words cannot express how sorry I am, and how necessary it is for
me to apologize to the people of South Africa, who I have
offended due to a needless and careless tweet," Sacco said in the
statement. "There is an AIDS crisis taking place in this country,
that we read about in America, but do not live with or face on a
continuous basis. Unfortunately, it is terribly easy to be
cavalier about an epidemic that one has never witnessed
firsthand.

For being insensitive to this crisis -- which does not
discriminate by race, gender or sexual orientation, but which
terrifies us all uniformly -- and to the millions of people
living with the virus, I am ashamed.

This is my father's country, and I was born here. I cherish my
ties to South Africa and my frequent visits, but I am in anguish
knowing that my remarks have caused pain to so many people here;
my family, friends and fellow South Africans. I am very sorry for
the pain I caused.